


We Shall be Monsters

by Hayjake1



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Academia, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Dubious Ethics, Flashbacks, Gen, Mad Scientists, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 04:10:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15622242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hayjake1/pseuds/Hayjake1
Summary: A modern-day Frankenstein AU with Lydia as a mad scientist who will defy death one piece of flesh at a time





	1. January 2018

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

“Dr. Martin, do you realize how serious these allegations are?”

Lydia fixated her gaze on the small pendulum that sat upon the lawyer’s desk, appearing utterly uninterested in anything the other woman had to say. Without detracting her gaze from the small metal orbs, she pursed her lips. “I realize that they pale in comparison with how serious the implications of my work are. I realize that I’m being forced into discussing some idiotic gossip and the few minor liability issues with my work, which has revolutionized the fields of biomechanics, cardiology, neurology, medicine -”

“Dr. Martin, no one is going to care what fields you ‘revolutionized’ if you’re blacklisted from publication.”

“-and philosophy. You didn’t let me finish. And on that point, when can we end this meeting? I’ve decided I don’t need an attorney”

“The University believes otherwise. The fallout from this is going to be massive, and we need to have a plan in place to minimize liability. To start we can issue an apology to -”

Lydia raised her eyebrows. “I won’t apologize for anything. Absolutely not.”

“Dr. Martin this is serious. The fire damage is catastrophic, you violated all professional ethics when you bypassed the internal review board, your assistant is in a psych ward, not to mention all the damage to the bodies…” 

“I hardly see…”

“My god, Lydia! A girl is dead! Drop this whole act and for once accept responsibility! Please. Just do the right thing here.”

Lydia shifted in her chair, leaning forward and narrowing her eyes. “I know what this is. The reason the university made me come here instead of just cutting all ties with me. I mean, that would have been easier for them. But then they’d never know how exactly this all happened. So they send you in to get the full story out of me, acting like you want to help me but really you just need to know where I buried the bodies… metaphorically speaking, of course.”

Marin Morrell leaned back in her chair and looked at the headstrong genius on the other side of her desk. “Lydia… I’m not your enemy. But things aren’t good. We both know the police are going to finish their investigation soon. That could mean criminal charges as well. We need to be on the same side here. This whole campus is about to become Salem and people are going to want a witch to burn.”

Lydia sat quietly thinking, before rolling her eyes and speaking up. “They never burned witches in Salem. In fact, usually they tied them up and threw them in the river. If they floated, then they were branded witches, and if they drowned then they were exonerated. Sink or swim, either way you lost.”

“Well, thank you for that fascinating history lesson, but I think you’re missing the point.” 

“No, you’re missing my point.” Lydia scoffed. “The point is, I’d rather be called a witch than be some drowned peasant who no one remembers. So I’ll agree to tell you everything. And you’re going to sit and listen and record it all down, so that one day everyone will see that I am the single greatest scientist who ever lived.”

Marin pulled out a pen and legal pad to begin writing. “Ready whenever you are.” She said as she watched Lydia pull up one of the pendulum’s orbs before letting it swing.

Marin listened diligently for hours as Lydia explained her life’s work, and the events it had brought about over the past year. It could not be denied that she had excelled in her field, becoming one of the top anatomical researchers in the nation and one of the foremost women in the STEM field all by age 35. For years she bounced between universities and institutions, innovating surgical techniques and perfecting mathematical models of biomechanics until she finally settled in as the resident researcher at Beacon Hills University Medical School. This position granted her unprecedented freedom from close research supervision and teaching commitments, unlimited access to the Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital and the attached Eichen House Psychological Care Facility, and the ability to hire her own student research assistant. She was even granted her own private lab in a forgotten annex on campus and for years she occupied herself with one secretive project.

It had started as a study on the cardiovascular effects of resuscitation. From there she continued to  add onto the project, incorporating neurological tests, organ transfusions, cosmetic surgery, etc. all to answer one question: how can a body best be rebuilt following a catastrophic event? And then one day she decided to push things a little further. Dr. Lydia Martin wouldn’t be satisfied recreating a person’s damaged body - she wanted to medically recreate a person’s life  _ after _ they had died. If a little electricity could restart a heart, surely someone of her intellect could restart a central nervous system as well! And from there it would just be a matter of reconstructing the damaged or decayed sections of the body, or better yet, replacing them. By February of last year, Lydia Martin had formed a plan to completely rebuild and reanimate a deceased human subject. And by July, she had done just that.


	2. March 2017

Once Lydia had fully committed herself to her goal, she decided to finally take advantage of some of her job perks and hire a student assistant. On the first day of march, she had hung up fliers all over campus reading:

  
Seeking Research Assistant.  
Advanced Knowledge of Anatomy Required.  
Surgical Students Prefered.  
No Course Credit Offered.  
Contact Dr. Lydia Martin with Application.  
MUST AGREE TO TERMS OF CONFIDENTIALITY!

She only received three applicants, her enigmatic reputation around campus scaring off most prospective assistants. The first girl’s interview went smoothly, and Lydia saw her as qualified but she lacked any sense of intellectual curiosity. The second applicant struck her as a narcissist creep whose only goal was to work with the elusive ‘mad scientist’ of Beacon Hills University. But the third applicant’s interview is the one she told Morrell the most about.

“Stilinski?” She called into the hall outside her office, watching a skinny boy scurry down towards her office and sinking into the chair she pointed to, directly across from her.

“Hello, Dr. Martin! I’m -”

“I know who you are. I have your application right here.” She said without looking up for the paper in front of her.

“Oh. Well, I just wanted to say thanks for letting me interview. I’ve read many of your articles and I’ve got to say that your work is, well, awesome!”

Lydia looked the fresh-faced student square in the face. “ It says here that this is only your first year of med school.” She said bluntly.

The boy squirmed slightly in her gaze. “Yes, that’s right.”

“So you don’t have any advanced experience with anatomical study?”

“Well in my undergrad I took a course-”

“Mr. Stilinski, have you ever worked with a cadaver?”

“Uh, well no, but my dad was a cop so I’ve seen a good amount of bodies and -”

“I just need a yes or no, not some rambling story. Have you ever cut into a human body?

His eyes dropped down. “No. Not yet.”

Lydia set down the paper. “ I don’t think you’re the right fit for this position, Mr. Stilinski.”

Rather than show anger with the callous professor or express disappointment, the young man took a deep breath and asked “Would your experiment involve live subjects?”

Curious as to the boy’s motives, Lydia studied the eager interviewee. “Why do you ask?”

“Because it has to. I’ve read all your studies and I know that you would never hire anyone else to do something you could do yourself. And there is only one thing that Dr. Lydia Martin can’t do and that is interact with live subjects. That’s why you need me in this position. I can work with populations that you just can’t connect to. In my undergraduate program I worked on cognitive neuroscience studies with dementia patients. I volunteer with children. I’m personable, I’m a fast learner, and I’m not squeamish. I can do any work you need me to do and get any data you can’t collect yourself. And… I know how to keep a secret.” He never broke eye contact with Lydia throughout his argument.

Lydia’s interest had been captured. “And what if you were asked to do things which might violate certain ethical guidelines?”

“Well, Dr. Martin… I’d have to say that those guidelines don’t apply when you’re changing the world.”

He was hired on sight.


	3. April 2017

Dr. Martin’s lab was a small building in the far corner of campus. Despite its humble exterior, the lab was outfitted with the latest medical equipment, including its own cadaver lab. Lydia’s demands for secrecy had been surprisingly met by the university, with not even a cleaning crew permitted into the building, and the only key belonging to Lydia herself. 

By April she had fallen into a routine which she outlined in detail for Marin. Every morning she’d arrive at the lab by 8 a.m. and get any equipment needed for that day’s research prepared. By 9 she would be joined by ‘Stiles’, as she had taken to calling her new assistant, who would help her sort through numerous databases and medical journals to find anything of use. He would pick up lunch for them around noon, after which he would leave for class and she would switch to some more private work - generally examining a number of preserved organs. At 6 p.m., she would lock up the lab and head home. 

The schedule changed on April 19th. The night before Lydia had received a long anticipated call, and when Stiles came in that morning, she could hardly keep from grinning when she pulled him into her office. “Stiles, there’s something I need to show you!”

“Is it that video of the one penguin pushing the other one? Because if so then I’ve got to show you the sequel!”

Lydia frowned. “No. Its the next step in our project. Now of course, you can’t tell anyone, but I’ve finally got what I’ve been needing.”

“A hobby?” Stiles mused, to which Lydia scoffed. 

“Just follow me into the lab.” She said eagerly, waltzing down the hall towards the locked backroom where she kept the cadavers. She ushered Stiles in, and locked the door behind them.

Stiles froze at the sight before him while Lydia stood off to the side, head held high. “Isn’t it perfect?” She asked.

“Oh my god…” was all Stiles could bring himself to say. 

Stretched out on the table before him was a body - not the cleaned and dehumanized form of a cadaver but an actual dead body, still scarred and matted with blood. Stiles suddenly felt a chill at the presence of this human being who could not have been dead for more than two days at most. The corpses he and Lydia had worked with were always long-dead bodies so shaved and sterile and reeking of formaldehyde that they were more specimen than human. But Stiles could not escape the sheer reality of the dead human being before him. 

“He looks like he’s my age.” Stiles said sadly. Lydia just glided around the body, staring down like a condor proudly claiming a heap of carrion.

“I’d say a bit younger. They found his body in the woods, looks like some animal got him. Probably a mountain lion. He likely passed out from shock and bleed out but something must have scared the killer away. Joggers found him yesterday morning. The police think he was homeless, some runaway living out there. No one to claim the body.” 

The boy’s eyes were still open, his eyelids wedged ajar from rigor mortis. His head was crowned with a mop of pitch black hair, and there was an odd aura of serenity around the still frame of his face. Below his shoulders though, his body was a mess of gashes, blood, and open cavities. His entire left foot was missing and bone was clearly visible through the cuts on his right arm. 

Stiles fought hard not to visibly tremble. He had expected to work with bodies but the sheer brutality of this made him sick. “Lydia… what is he doing here?”

“I have a connection at the morgue who notified me and was able to help me claim him.” She said while pressing a measuring tape against the dead boy’s forearm.

“But why do we need him? Can’t we use the cadavers for whatever projects you need to work on?” 

“Stiles, this is THE project. The apex of my career, the summation of years of study. Do you know how hard its been to find a healthy young body with no physical damage to the brain or spinal column without any family to protest?”

“To protest what exactly?”

Lydia smiled tremendously. “We are going to perform the first ever transplant-supplemented complete neurological and cardiopulmonary resuscitation and cognitive restoration. I’ve theorized about it for years but now I’m going to put it into practice.”

Stiles ran through her words once more in his head, trying to make sense of the genius’s passionate speech. “Wait, that sounds a lot like -”  
“Reanimation.” Lydia announced. “That’s right. Give me six months and some useable parts and I’ll have him walking and talking again. With this young man’s central nervous system, we are going to build life!” 

Stiles had stared bewildered at Lydia as she spoke. Her eyes continued to widen and she spoke feverishly know. Stiles had never before seen his boss struck with such fervor. She continued to rave glaring down at the body.

“-His death is just the beginning of my creation! Stiles, allow me to present to you the potential to defy nature’s so-called laws. Stiles… Meet Scott!” She held her hands out in a grandiose display over the newly christened corpse, and Stiles felt his blood go cold.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
